ATHLLC2475191142

00:00:00.000 | A quick word from our sponsor today.

00:00:01.680 | I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much

00:00:08.040 | more, but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which

00:00:12.840 | actually gets harder as you build your wealth.

00:00:14.920 | So I want to introduce you to today's sponsor, LongAngle.

00:00:18.160 | LongAngle is a community of high net worth individuals with backgrounds in

00:00:22.200 | everything from technology, finance, medicine, to real estate, law,

00:00:26.040 | manufacturing, and more.

00:00:27.600 | I'm a member of LongAngle.

00:00:29.480 | I've loved being a part of the community, and I've even had one of the founders,

00:00:33.040 | Tad Fallows, join me on all the hacks in episode 87 to talk about alternative

00:00:37.200 | investments.

00:00:37.920 | Now, the majority of LongAngle members are first generation wealth, young, highly

00:00:42.640 | successful individuals who join the community to share knowledge and learn

00:00:46.400 | from each other in a confidential, unbiased setting.

00:00:49.600 | On top of that, members also get access to some unique private market investment

00:00:54.400 | opportunities.

00:00:55.200 | Like I said, I'm a member and I've gotten so much value from the community

00:00:59.120 | because you're getting advice and feedback from people in a similar

00:01:02.280 | situation to you on everything from your investment portfolio to your children's

00:01:06.680 | education, to finding a concierge doctor.

00:01:09.200 | So many of these conversations aren't happening anywhere else online.

00:01:13.120 | So if you have more than 2.2 million in investable assets, which is their

00:01:17.400 | minimum for membership, I encourage you to check out LongAngle and it's totally

00:01:21.960 | free to join.

00:01:22.760 | Just go to longangle.com to learn more.

00:01:26.120 | And if you choose to apply, be sure to let them know.

00:01:28.840 | You heard about it here.

00:01:29.960 | Again, that's longangle.com.

00:01:34.640 | Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading

00:01:42.480 | your life, money, and travel.

00:01:44.480 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm excited to have you on my journey to find all the

00:01:48.480 | hacks.

00:01:49.000 | And today we're talking jobs, careers, and everything in between with Katherine

00:01:54.200 | Minshew, founder and CEO of The Muse, a career platform that serves over 7

00:01:59.640 | million people each month, and the co-author of the best-selling book, The

00:02:04.040 | New Rules of Work, the modern playbook for navigating your career.

00:02:08.200 | I am so excited to chat with her about finding and getting the right job, making

00:02:13.480 | networking suck a whole lot less, and how to build your personal brand online

00:02:17.920 | without needing to become a social media influencer.

00:02:21.480 | But before we jump in, I want to share two quick things.

00:02:24.560 | First, I would love your support in nominating All The Hacks for a Plutus

00:02:30.280 | Award for the best new personal finance podcast.

00:02:33.720 | It will only take a couple seconds, and you can do it by going to

00:02:37.280 | allthehacks.com/vote.

00:02:39.720 | Second, I'm going to be doing a listener mailbag episode soon.

00:02:43.880 | So if you have any questions for me, or you have any hacks to share with the

00:02:48.000 | thousands of All The Hacks listeners, please send an email to

00:02:51.640 | chris@allthehacks.com.

00:02:53.880 | All right, let's get to the interview.

00:02:56.840 | Katherine, thank you for being here.

00:02:59.120 | Thank you so much for having me.

00:03:00.520 | I'm really excited to join.

00:03:01.840 | We actually have had a bunch of people write in asking if we could do an

00:03:05.320 | episode on career, work, jobs, everything.

00:03:08.080 | So I'm really excited to do this.

00:03:10.160 | And I want to kick it off with just a random question, which is, what do you

00:03:13.680 | think is the biggest misconception when it comes to navigating the modern

00:03:17.800 | workplace?

00:03:18.520 | Oh, the biggest misconception.

00:03:21.960 | I think a lot of people are so fixated on how do I get the job?

00:03:26.800 | How do I convince the company to choose me that they forget to ask themselves

00:03:31.480 | what do I want?

00:03:32.640 | And what type of company should I be picking?

00:03:37.200 | Because a job is not one size fits all, right?

00:03:40.280 | It is incredibly dependent, not only on your skills, strengths, experiences, but

00:03:46.800 | also your preferences, your needs, your values, and how those align with the

00:03:51.720 | kind of preferences, needs, values of the team that you work with, the

00:03:55.640 | organization that you work for.

00:03:57.000 | And I think sometimes, especially early career professionals, but I see this at

00:04:01.360 | any age, people are so focused on getting picked, getting chosen, getting through

00:04:06.640 | the interview, that they forget to really turn the question around.

00:04:09.280 | And how do you think people should figure that out?

00:04:12.520 | Like, if you are not happy in your current job, and you're not sure what you

00:04:17.400 | want to do next, obviously, you could just start applying to random jobs.

00:04:20.600 | But is there a process or some advice you give people that are unsure what they

00:04:24.680 | should do?

00:04:25.200 | Yes, yes.

00:04:26.240 | And in fact, I don't recommend starting with applying to random jobs, because I

00:04:30.560 | think that there's a step before that, a phase zero, that sets you off on the

00:04:35.760 | right foot.

00:04:36.280 | And that is a process of self-discovery and self-exploration.

00:04:40.320 | Now, before, you know, someone listening freaks out, it doesn't have to be weeks

00:04:44.440 | or months long, you could do it in a focused afternoon, although I do

00:04:47.960 | recommend taking a week or two if you have the time.

00:04:50.520 | And essentially, it's a process of looking at where you are, the experiences

00:04:55.720 | that you've had in the past, and trying to ascertain when have you been in flow

00:05:00.840 | state, which is, you know, as probably everyone listening knows, when just time

00:05:04.680 | seems to fly by and you're totally locked in, you can start to think about when

00:05:09.000 | have you been happiest in your career?

00:05:11.160 | When have you felt most motivated, and most engaged and productive at work?

00:05:17.520 | If you have the time, I really recommend asking friends, family, perhaps former

00:05:22.400 | colleagues who you don't worry might be might be tipped off to the fact that

00:05:26.280 | you're thinking about a change, but asking them, you know, what do you see as

00:05:30.240 | my strengths?

00:05:30.960 | When do you see me light up professionally?

00:05:33.400 | And I think once you start to zero in on a couple of your values,

00:05:38.920 | professionally, it can be much easier and more straightforward to organize a job

00:05:43.280 | search.

00:05:43.600 | And these aren't these values aren't the same for everyone, right?

00:05:46.240 | So you might realize that you really value a stable work environment, or

00:05:51.120 | someone might want quite the opposite.

00:05:52.640 | They might want a work environment where things are constantly changing, and

00:05:56.440 | there's experimentation and things are very new and fresh.

00:05:58.760 | Some people might really value prestige or compensation.

00:06:02.240 | Other people might want maximum flexibility, or creativity, or they may

00:06:07.080 | want to be deeply aligned with the mission of the organization that they

00:06:11.240 | work for.

00:06:11.760 | There are a lot of different things you can prioritize in your career, but

00:06:15.440 | you're not necessarily going to find a job or a company that is 10 out of 10 on

00:06:20.080 | every dimension in the world.

00:06:21.280 | But you can find one that's 10 out of 10 on the you know, three to four values or

00:06:27.480 | dimensions that matter most to you.

00:06:29.000 | So I think that's the most powerful place to start.

00:06:31.200 | Even though sometimes people can get impatient, and they just want to dive in

00:06:34.840 | and jump in.

00:06:35.600 | Yeah, I've been in this situation before.

00:06:37.800 | And if you get laid off, obviously, there's a different sense of urgency to

00:06:41.320 | what happens.

00:06:41.960 | But I noticed you didn't say, you know, pursue your passion, which is something I

00:06:46.520 | hear a lot of people often say when you're looking for what to do.

00:06:49.320 | How do you feel about that phrase?

00:06:50.680 | I just don't find it very helpful as a phrase, right?

00:06:53.200 | First of all, like, what is my passion?

00:06:55.360 | A lot of people don't know, and labeling something a passion can make the stakes

00:07:00.440 | feel incredibly high.

00:07:02.120 | Secondly, a lot of people are actually happier serving their passion if it is

00:07:06.920 | outside of work, but they pick a professional set of pursuits that

00:07:10.520 | complement it.

00:07:11.200 | So what do I mean by that?

00:07:12.320 | You might love to paint, but do you want to be a professional painter?

00:07:17.000 | Maybe and if you do, absolutely, like go live your dreams.

00:07:20.720 | But for a lot of people that have a passion for painting or a passion for some

00:07:25.000 | sort of perhaps artistic endeavor, they are actually happier not putting all of

00:07:29.720 | the pressures of financially supporting themselves on that passion.

00:07:33.360 | They're happier thinking about a career that is motivating, that is exciting, but

00:07:38.520 | perhaps provides the financial stability or the flexibility.

00:07:42.120 | Again, I think live your passion is, you know, it's a fun phrase.

00:07:46.320 | It's a great catchphrase, but I just think it's a little bit overused because, you

00:07:50.800 | know, it doesn't necessarily provide signpost.

00:07:53.040 | Now, for some people, they're deeply passionate about making some sort of

00:07:57.480 | change in the world or a specific mission.

00:08:00.520 | And if you can align your career with the larger good you want to see in the

00:08:05.640 | world, that's incredibly motivating.

00:08:07.120 | And I think it's something that, again, if that matters to you deeply, you should

00:08:11.000 | absolutely strive to do.

00:08:12.440 | But I wouldn't necessarily say that always fits in the catchphrase of like follow

00:08:17.400 | your passion.

00:08:18.320 | I think that sometimes it's helpful to just take a step back and and really think,

00:08:23.480 | you know, what what am I good at?

00:08:24.960 | What can I make a living at?

00:08:26.600 | What do I enjoy?

00:08:27.680 | Where's an intersection between those?

00:08:29.280 | And again, if you have a passion, an artistic pursuit, a hobby, et cetera, I

00:08:34.720 | think it's really important and fair to say, do I want this to be my livelihood or

00:08:40.320 | do I want this to be a beautiful and important part of a larger life that

00:08:44.800 | includes a different professional component?

00:08:47.000 | And I think that both of those are really valid.

00:08:49.080 | And again, I just really encourage people to ask themselves the question and honor

00:08:54.680 | whatever answer comes up for them, not what answer you think culturally you

00:08:58.160 | should choose or what your friends say or what some influencer on Instagram told

00:09:02.600 | you to do.

00:09:03.240 | It's really like what is the right answer for you specifically, because each of us

00:09:07.360 | has such a different set of needs as well as hopes and dreams in our careers.

00:09:13.280 | Yeah, my brother in law loves golf and used to be a professional golfer briefly

00:09:18.200 | and realized that that changes the whole thing.

00:09:20.480 | When this thing that you loved doing as a hobby, as a way to spend time, as a way

00:09:25.040 | to enjoy time with friends becomes your job.

00:09:27.400 | He started not loving golf as much as he had before and immediately was like, I

00:09:31.320 | need to find something else.

00:09:32.280 | And now he runs North American sales at AppDynamics and it's a totally different

00:09:37.720 | career and is so happy that he's not a professional golfer but still golfs all

00:09:42.160 | the time.

00:09:42.880 | So I'm a big fan.

00:09:44.680 | You know, my day job is not pursuing, you know, all the all the hacks.

00:09:49.240 | It just happens to be what I do on my free time.

00:09:51.120 | So it doesn't have to be the same thing.

00:09:53.320 | I totally agree.

00:09:54.280 | If we go back in time for you, how does what you're doing now line up with your

00:09:58.760 | passion?

00:09:59.160 | How did you end up finding an entire career in, you know, this career?

00:10:04.640 | Yeah, so I do feel like I pursued my own winding, eclectic career path by

00:10:12.360 | following a lot of the principles that are now part of what I talk about via the

00:10:16.920 | Muse and via my book.

00:10:18.240 | So for me, when I started, and actually I'll go back like way back to age 13, 14

00:10:24.400 | year old Catherine, I fell in love with that television show Alias that starred

00:10:29.240 | Jennifer Garner.

00:10:30.000 | If you or anybody listening remembers, it was this amazing show about like a double

00:10:33.760 | agent.

00:10:34.200 | And I decided really early on, I was going to be either a CIA agent or an

00:10:40.040 | ambassador.

00:10:40.760 | Like that was the plan.

00:10:42.080 | That was the goal.

00:10:43.240 | I did actually briefly think also about pursuing theater professionally.

00:10:47.400 | Theater was a big extracurricular passion of mine, and I loved it.

00:10:50.760 | But you know, when I did a few community theater productions or talk to people who

00:10:55.440 | were professionals in the field, to your point about your brother, it didn't really

00:10:59.840 | feel like doing that professionally was going to be as fulfilling as doing it as a

00:11:05.640 | hobby or, you know, an activity that I deeply enjoyed.

00:11:08.600 | And so I focused in on like, I'm going to be this secret agent or this, you know,

00:11:14.600 | state department official.

00:11:15.640 | And luckily in 2007, I applied for and was accepted to work at a US embassy in

00:11:22.840 | Nicosia, Cyprus in the regional security office.

00:11:26.760 | And let me tell you, I have some amazing stories from that time.

00:11:30.680 | It was a totally wild, fascinating experience, but I very quickly realized

00:11:37.120 | that the sort of reality of life in the state department and in government service

00:11:43.200 | in general, it didn't match this idea I had built up in my head, right, about what

00:11:48.040 | the career was actually like.

00:11:49.400 | And so even though I consider that time to be an incredible experience, I also came

00:11:55.600 | out of it with all of the angst of a 22-year-old saying like, "What do I want to

00:12:01.120 | do with my life if it's not this?"

00:12:03.520 | And I then spent the next two or three years feeling somewhat lost.

00:12:07.200 | I worked at McKinsey and Company as a consultant for a few years.

00:12:10.040 | I moved to Kigali, Rwanda and ran a vaccine introduction for a period of time, which,

00:12:14.880 | by the way, fascinating now that vaccines are in the news again.

00:12:17.360 | But I was really trying these different careers and I was also spending a lot of

00:12:22.200 | time on job boards.

00:12:23.640 | I was on monster.com all the time.

00:12:26.320 | I was looking on different company career websites, trying to figure out what were

00:12:31.680 | the jobs that were even out there?

00:12:33.120 | What did that actually mean to do those jobs?

00:12:35.800 | Would I like that?

00:12:36.720 | And I became just personally fascinated by, first of all, how complex the career

00:12:42.640 | search is.

00:12:43.280 | I became really interested in how to assess what a company's culture and values are

00:12:49.360 | from the outside.

00:12:50.160 | What is the employee experience like?

00:12:51.800 | Because it's very different at very different companies.

00:12:54.320 | You know, a sales job or an engineering job or a marketing job is not a single

00:12:59.440 | interchangeable thing where it doesn't matter where you work.

00:13:01.760 | No, it actually matters very much where you work.

00:13:04.760 | And so I was really interested in how people make career decisions from the

00:13:10.040 | outside. And it frustrated me at the same time when I was leaving McKinsey.

00:13:14.080 | I was getting recruited by some hedge funds, by big tech companies, and some of

00:13:20.640 | them were rolling out the red carpet with these very expensive recruiting dinners.

00:13:25.360 | And all of this time, they were investing one-on-one in me, trying to convince me

00:13:30.560 | to join their company.

00:13:31.520 | And then I would go online and look at other jobs.

00:13:34.280 | And it was this terrible, transactional, paper-thin experience where they were

00:13:38.800 | just like, "Do you have these skills?

00:13:40.120 | Apply. Maybe we'll consider you."

00:13:42.080 | Like, it was just terrible.

00:13:43.560 | And I thought there's got to be something between these two extremes.

00:13:47.560 | There should be an online platform that helps create a digital red carpet

00:13:53.800 | experience, that gives someone insight into the culture and values that

00:13:58.680 | a company, you know, and helps also guide and coach people as they go through

00:14:03.800 | the often fraught and challenging process of finding a job, figuring out what

00:14:08.920 | they want to do.

00:14:09.600 | And so the idea for The Muse was percolating for a long time before I

00:14:13.960 | actually started the business.

00:14:15.880 | But I really felt like I built it because I needed it and it didn't exist.

00:14:20.080 | Well, that's amazing.

00:14:22.080 | I had like six follow-ups that came from that.

00:14:24.360 | Okay, go.

00:14:25.200 | One was, you ended up having to go work at the State Department in order to

00:14:30.040 | figure out that you didn't want to do that.

00:14:32.120 | Knowing everything you know now, do you think there's something you could have

00:14:34.920 | done to figure out if that would have been a good fit without having to go do it?

00:14:39.440 | You know, I think if I had been able to sit down with people who worked at the

00:14:45.840 | State Department, what's called an informational interview, that might have

00:14:49.040 | given me the insight that I needed, or even watching enough videos of people

00:14:54.280 | who were in that career path talking about a typical day in their life, what

00:14:58.680 | they did, how it worked.

00:15:00.160 | That's frankly, some of the experience that I've tried to approximate with The

00:15:03.840 | Muse, because not everyone has the opportunity to go work for an

00:15:08.840 | organization and then change their mind or go sit down one-on-one over coffee

00:15:13.400 | with someone who's in a particular career field.

00:15:15.600 | Obviously, I got a really deep front-row seat to what the organization was like by

00:15:20.600 | working there, but I absolutely think that had I been a little bit savvier of a job

00:15:26.480 | searcher, I might have been able to recognize that beforehand without going

00:15:31.800 | all the way to Cyprus to find out that it wasn't the end-all be-all for the rest of

00:15:37.800 | my career.

00:15:38.440 | So that brings up an important part of this entire process that you dedicate, I

00:15:43.480 | think, an entire chapter to about networking with people.

00:15:45.840 | I'd love to just dig into how you think people could do a better job.

00:15:50.200 | I know that it can be daunting for some people, especially going into a new career

00:15:55.440 | to find people, both for the purpose of learning, for the purpose of having an in

00:15:59.840 | if you find a company you want.

00:16:01.240 | Are there things you think people should start with to try to build those skills

00:16:05.880 | and be productive with networking?

00:16:07.760 | Yeah, so first of all, I don't know about you, but when I first started thinking

00:16:13.760 | about networking, it almost had a bad rap to me, right?

00:16:17.560 | I imagine these guys in ill-fitting suits and briefcases, mechanically shaking hands

00:16:22.760 | and passing business cards back and forth in like a hotel lobby.

00:16:25.680 | And I think if you break that apart in your mind and you just say, OK, networking is

00:16:30.480 | about meeting new people, learning about them, getting to know them, and thinking

00:16:36.720 | about it as a long game of just investing in those around you.

00:16:40.200 | It really reframes networking for a lot of people.

00:16:43.360 | And I think that it also helps you understand what works for you.

00:16:46.000 | Some people really ace those big, giant networking events like conferences.

00:16:51.520 | Other people do really well by hosting their own smaller networking events, getting

00:16:56.600 | to know people in quieter or more small group settings.

00:17:00.080 | And I think that's all right.

00:17:01.040 | So when I think about tips for networking, I often encourage people to understand your

00:17:08.120 | own preferences, what's going to make you most comfortable.

00:17:12.040 | Do you want to try going to bigger events?

00:17:14.120 | Do you want to invite four people that you know professionally and ask them to each

00:17:18.600 | invite two people and host some sort of smaller group?

00:17:21.880 | I've had people have great success organizing book clubs around professional

00:17:26.280 | related books and using that as a forum to meet people.

00:17:28.800 | So understand what works for you.

00:17:30.920 | I think it's also helpful to set a few goals for yourself.

00:17:33.680 | Is it that you want to attend one networking event a month or reach out to three

00:17:38.400 | contacts from your network every week to see how they're doing?

00:17:41.320 | Whatever the goals are, sometimes just writing them down can give you a clarity

00:17:44.840 | around what you're trying to accomplish.

00:17:46.240 | If you're going to in-person events, I always recommend, you know, dress

00:17:49.600 | comfortably.

00:17:50.240 | You want to focus on the people there, not your shoes or your outfit.

00:17:53.800 | It can be really great to bring what I term in the book, a wingman or a wingwoman,

00:17:57.680 | which is someone else who's in your same professional space who you feel very

00:18:01.640 | comfortable with.

00:18:02.200 | You enjoy their company so that, you know, you may find that at the event you spend

00:18:06.480 | a lot of time apart talking to different people, but you also know that if you want

00:18:10.520 | a kind of touchstone or you want to just recenter yourself in the middle of the

00:18:14.960 | event, you can go find them, join the conversation they're having and vice

00:18:18.440 | versa.

00:18:18.840 | I also think that again, networking doesn't have to be this sort of large kind of

00:18:24.400 | faceless thing.

00:18:25.200 | You can focus at times on just, you know, a smaller number of deeper connections

00:18:29.400 | and informational interviews are a really helpful way to do that.

00:18:32.120 | And, you know, is it helpful if I talk a little bit about informational interviews

00:18:35.080 | for people who may not be as, as familiar with the best practice there?

00:18:38.440 | Yeah, definitely.

00:18:39.880 | It seems like with every business, you get to a certain size and the cracks start to

00:18:46.040 | emerge.

00:18:46.600 | Things that you used to do in a day are taking a week and you have too many manual

00:18:51.120 | processes and there's no one source of truth.

00:18:54.120 | If this is you, you should know these three numbers, 37,025, one 37,000.

00:19:01.320 | That's the number of businesses which have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle.

00:19:04.840 | And I'm excited to partner with them for this episode.

00:19:07.240 | NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, streamlining accounting, financial

00:19:11.760 | management, inventory, HR, and more.

00:19:14.080 | 25 NetSuite turns 25 this year.

00:19:17.480 | That's 25 years of helping businesses do more with less close their books in days,

00:19:22.720 | not weeks and drive down costs.

00:19:25.000 | And one, because your business is one of a kind.

00:19:28.600 | So you get a customized solution for all your KPIs in one efficient

00:19:33.160 | system with one source of truth.

00:19:35.040 | Manage risk, get reliable forecasts and improve margins.

00:19:38.960 | Everything you need to grow all in one place, which I can tell you from all the

00:19:43.320 | companies I've run makes everything so much better.

00:19:46.120 | So right now download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you

00:19:51.360 | consistently excellent performance, absolutely free at allthehacks.com/netsuite.

00:19:57.880 | That's allthehacks.com/netsuite to get your own KPI checklist.

00:20:02.640 | Allthehacks.com/netsuite, N-E-T-S-U-I-T-E.

00:20:08.120 | There is nothing I love more than learning that something I enjoy is actually so good

00:20:14.560 | for you and nothing showcases that better than Pu-erh tea.

00:20:17.960 | It has so many health benefits and I think one of the best and easiest ways to consume

00:20:22.160 | it is from our sponsor today, Peak Tea.

00:20:24.640 | Peak's Pu-erh teas are all cold extracted using only wild harvested leaves from 250

00:20:30.840 | year old tea trees, rich in minerals, theraflavins and catechins.

00:20:35.160 | Then everything is triple toxin screened for pesticides, heavy minerals and toxic

00:20:40.400 | mold commonly found in plants.

00:20:42.280 | And Peak's products are so easy and zero prep because they're all in pre-measured

00:20:47.440 | quantities that dissolve in cold or hot water in seconds and are so travel friendly.

00:20:52.760 | They have so many products, but lately I've been alternating between the green Pu-erh

00:20:57.560 | for mental clarity and energy and the black Pu-erh, which helps kickstart digestion

00:21:02.440 | and metabolism with a rich earthy flavor that is so good and probably one of my

00:21:07.240 | favorite things to drink.

00:21:08.520 | And if you need another reason, search for all the amazing research backed benefits

00:21:12.520 | of polyphenols for your gut microbiome, heart, blood sugar and more, and then be

00:21:16.920 | happy that Pu-erh is more concentrated in polyphenols than all other teas in the

00:21:21.240 | world.

00:21:21.680 | But you don't even have to take my word or do any research because Peak offers free

00:21:25.920 | US shipping, free returns and a money backed guarantee.

00:21:29.040 | And for a limited time, you can get up to 15% off and a free quiver with 12 tea

00:21:34.840 | samples at my link at allthehacks.com/peek, that's P-I-Q-U-E.

00:21:40.920 | So check them out today at allthehacks.com/peek, P-I-Q-U-E.

00:21:47.240 | So what is an informational interview?

00:21:48.880 | First of all, it's sitting down, usually one to one across the table or on a Zoom

00:21:54.200 | with someone who's in a career field or a role that you're interested in and

00:21:59.240 | learning more.

00:22:00.080 | What do they do in a typical day?

00:22:01.880 | What are the kind of best and worst things about their job?

00:22:06.840 | It's a really great way of exploring a career field, a company, a particular type

00:22:13.520 | of work before you dive in and fully commit.

00:22:15.840 | Frankly, it's what I wish I had done earlier in my career so that I would have

00:22:19.960 | known more about some of these different fields before I dove in.

00:22:23.040 | So there's a few tips that I find make informational interviews go much better.

00:22:27.480 | First of all, do your research ahead of time.

00:22:29.600 | Many informational interviews will start out with either you reaching out cold to

00:22:34.720 | someone, perhaps through your network, through your college or university's

00:22:39.280 | alumni network.

00:22:40.360 | You know, you might be introduced by a mutual friend, but you're reaching out to

00:22:43.680 | someone and asking for 15, 30 minutes, maybe an hour of their time to learn more

00:22:49.080 | about their career path and guide you on your own.

00:22:51.120 | And so I think it's really helpful to do a bit of research ahead of time,

00:22:54.160 | understand where they've come from, what are some of the key elements of or key

00:22:59.720 | turning points in their career so that you're not asking them questions that you

00:23:04.120 | could have answered with a Google search, thinking about making a good impression.

00:23:07.800 | This is someone who might be able to refer you for a job or an opportunity in the

00:23:12.200 | future, someone that you may be able to help.

00:23:14.880 | So really being prompt, being respectful of their time is very helpful.

00:23:19.720 | I also love asking what I call dual questions or positive negative questions.

00:23:24.640 | So sometimes one of the most helpful things you can learn from an informational

00:23:29.480 | interview is something like what sort of people would not be happy in a career

00:23:34.880 | field like yours, or what are some of the challenges of working at, you know,

00:23:39.240 | company XYZ.

00:23:40.720 | But often if you ask a directly negative shaded question like that, sometimes

00:23:45.160 | people will be protective of where they work.

00:23:47.240 | And so they may hesitate to give you an honest answer, which is why I like these

00:23:51.880 | dual questions.

00:23:52.640 | It's essentially asking a positive and a negative at the same time.

00:23:55.640 | So this might look like asking someone, I'd really love to understand more what

00:23:59.880 | it's actually like to work at company XYZ.

00:24:02.680 | What are some of your favorite things about working there?

00:24:05.200 | And what are some of the things that might be more challenging or frustrating

00:24:09.240 | for people? Or you could ask, you know,

00:24:11.400 | when I'm thinking about whether I want to build a career as a brand marketer or a

00:24:16.160 | data engineer or whatever the career field is,

00:24:17.920 | you what do you think are some of the things that are really most enjoyable and

00:24:22.160 | exciting to you about the field?

00:24:23.520 | And what are some of the things that are drawbacks or challenges that someone

00:24:27.160 | should be aware of?

00:24:28.000 | I think if you give people a chance to answer both the good and the bad,

00:24:32.800 | you tend to get much more honesty. And again,

00:24:35.560 | honesty is what you're going for because you are ultimately usually in these

00:24:39.600 | conversations,

00:24:40.440 | trying to get the information that will help you decide if a particular career

00:24:45.080 | field or a particular company is going to be a good fit.

00:24:47.760 | Yeah. I mean,

00:24:49.480 | I think it's really important to realize that networking doesn't have to just be

00:24:52.680 | these big events with lots of people.

00:24:54.400 | And there's a lot of value that can come from this one-on-one.

00:24:56.800 | I'll share a couple of my tips because I really love the challenge of finding

00:25:01.920 | email addresses and finding connections to people.

00:25:05.120 | I feel like that's just a game that I really enjoy.

00:25:07.640 | And so when I started thinking about how to do this kind of one-on-one

00:25:11.800 | networking,

00:25:12.640 | first I would go to LinkedIn and I would look at all my connections and then I

00:25:16.320 | would look at all their connections and I would just scroll through.

00:25:19.320 | And so before I would meet with someone, I would go in with a list.

00:25:23.000 | And sometimes I even printed it out depending on how well I knew them.

00:25:25.720 | But I was like,

00:25:26.320 | here are the seven people that this person knows that could be a good fit for me

00:25:30.360 | to meet. And so every time I went to one of those meetings,

00:25:32.440 | I would go and know who could I potentially be looking for an introduction

00:25:36.840 | for. And then I always have an idea of my network.

00:25:39.800 | So who are you looking to meet and how could I add value back to you?

00:25:42.680 | That's when you know the person you're meeting with. When you don't,

00:25:45.040 | sometimes you need to find an email address.

00:25:47.200 | And so there are a bunch of browser extensions. I use one called Lucia,

00:25:51.560 | which basically like when you're on a LinkedIn profile will show you an email.

00:25:55.280 | But the biggest trick I found that for validating emails is if you just search

00:26:01.960 | in Google for an email with quotes, you'll get, but it's not in quotes.

00:26:06.080 | It always fails. But if it's in quotes,

00:26:08.120 | you usually get back whether that email is out there.

00:26:11.040 | And I found emails in the strangest places.

00:26:13.600 | So you just kind of like guess someone's email address, you know, for you,

00:26:17.240 | I would try, you know, first name, last name, first letter, last name,

00:26:21.320 | all these different combinations.

00:26:22.640 | And I've seen things pop up where there's like a random PTA agenda for some,

00:26:27.400 | you know, school, but they're the coordinator.

00:26:30.360 | And so their email is on this agenda.

00:26:32.160 | And so when you're trying to find email addresses,

00:26:34.080 | there's a lot of ways to be creative.

00:26:35.600 | I love that.

00:26:36.640 | Yeah. I mean, I go a little bit intense sometimes,

00:26:40.720 | because I want to make these events efficient. So if I go to an event,

00:26:44.480 | one thing that I find that most people don't know you can do,

00:26:47.360 | you can often email a conference and say, Hey,

00:26:50.040 | do you have a list of the attendees? You don't need the email.

00:26:52.720 | Sometimes they just include the email addresses, which is like, you know,

00:26:55.680 | someone sent you a plate of gold. Sometimes they don't.

00:26:58.920 | But I go through every conference or every event.

00:27:01.200 | I try to find all the attendees, figure out who's interesting.

00:27:04.160 | And sometimes I'll go one step further and I'll go to their LinkedIn profiles.

00:27:07.840 | I'll copy their photos and I'll put them in a notes doc on my phone.

00:27:11.480 | So when I'm like, okay, I'm going to go stand on the wall for a second,

00:27:14.400 | look through this and try to identify who are these people I'm trying to meet.

00:27:17.640 | And then I'll be like, there's Bill. And then I'm like, I'm like targeting,

00:27:21.680 | I want to go talk to Bill. And I walk up there.

00:27:24.480 | I love this so much by the way,

00:27:26.640 | because I think what you just gave is a mini masterclass on how

00:27:31.760 | to get the attention of people who are otherwise busy.

00:27:34.480 | And you're completely right.

00:27:35.720 | That being in the same place at the same time is one of the best ways I would

00:27:40.360 | say, you know, back when I used to attend a lot more conferences,

00:27:43.560 | my schedule was packed. But if someone said, Hey, Catherine,

00:27:47.360 | I'm also going to be where you already are.

00:27:50.360 | Do you have 15 minutes during one of these breaks?

00:27:53.640 | I am probably about 30 times more likely to say yes,

00:27:57.280 | than if it had just been a cold email asking for a phone call or something.

00:28:01.160 | Likewise,

00:28:01.760 | if you can find any other points of connection with that person through perhaps

00:28:05.960 | Googling them, talking them,

00:28:07.640 | it's such a great way to get on someone's radar. And I think that's brilliant.

00:28:11.160 | Yeah. So sometimes it can backfire. So when I was in college,

00:28:15.160 | I was applying for a job in New York and I was at home and I grew up like you

00:28:18.960 | did in Northern Virginia, right outside DC.

00:28:21.400 | And there was a company in New York and I really wanted to work at this company.

00:28:24.480 | And so I sent an email to the person that I'd been introduced to. And I said,

00:28:28.200 | Hey, I'm in New York this week. And I, you know, it's four hours away.

00:28:32.400 | I was like, would you be up for meeting up? And I thought, you know,

00:28:35.680 | if this person thinks I'm already there and I'm only there this week,

00:28:38.680 | there's a higher likelihood that they'd make the effort.

00:28:40.600 | And I remember getting an email at like 10 PM that was like,

00:28:43.640 | could you come in at six tomorrow morning or seven?

00:28:45.760 | There's some really early time.

00:28:48.360 | And so I literally took the 1am Amtrak up to New York,

00:28:52.040 | got in at like 3.45 in the morning,

00:28:54.600 | went to a friend's house and took a shower and got all dressed up.

00:28:58.600 | I put my suit on and, and showed up. And, you know,

00:29:01.640 | only about six months later, did I actually say, you know,

00:29:04.000 | I was actually not in New York at the time.

00:29:06.000 | And the person thought it was funny, but it worked.

00:29:07.800 | People love the hustle though, right? It really does.

00:29:10.360 | That's actually how I got the URL, themuse.com.

00:29:14.120 | The person who owned it was this amazing guy who lived in Washington,

00:29:18.720 | DC, actually.

00:29:19.800 | And I at the time was in San Francisco, California,

00:29:23.960 | because I had just finished the Y Combinator Incubator Program for

00:29:28.880 | the Muse. And similarly,

00:29:30.600 | I actually had gotten his email through some connection.

00:29:34.160 | I had been emailing him, researching him, trying to get a meeting.

00:29:38.200 | And finally I said, I'll be in DC this weekend. And somewhat similarly,

00:29:41.640 | he's like, great, how about Sunday morning at 10 AM?

00:29:44.320 | And it was a tight turnaround, but I was on a, I think,

00:29:47.120 | a red eyes that Saturday night.

00:29:48.800 | And I made the meeting and ended up getting the URL and bringing him on as an

00:29:53.280 | advisor.

00:29:53.720 | So sometimes you just have to show up or pretend in this

00:29:58.520 | case that you are already there.

00:30:00.000 | I know. Yeah.

00:30:02.080 | So two things that you mentioned in your book that I thought were really

00:30:05.880 | interesting. I want to make sure I highlight one was in addition to these two

00:30:10.480 | sided questions, when you're networking,

00:30:12.320 | you mentioned asking open-ended questions. And I think I fail at this a lot,

00:30:16.160 | but the tip I really loved is instead of saying,

00:30:19.040 | do you like working at Google where someone can be like, yes. And then,

00:30:22.360 | you know, there's nothing left. You could say, well,

00:30:24.880 | what's it like to work at Google? Do you, you know, what do you think?

00:30:27.920 | And that's a much longer answer.

00:30:30.120 | And I think my brain when I'm in work mode is always in the,

00:30:34.680 | let's be efficient, let's be efficient.

00:30:36.240 | But when it comes to building relationships,

00:30:38.200 | the goal isn't to get to the end result as fast as possible.

00:30:41.480 | It's to build the relationship.

00:30:42.880 | So that's one tip that I really liked. And then I'll ask you this one.

00:30:47.160 | This is where I feel like I fail.

00:30:49.040 | I am terrible at just leaving a conversation in a professional

00:30:53.880 | setting where, you know, I've been there for, I'm trying to meet 10 people.

00:30:57.160 | I've only got a couple hours.

00:30:58.800 | Do you have any tips what to do when you're 15 minutes in,

00:31:01.960 | you've made that relationship,

00:31:03.200 | you've kind of set up maybe a next step and you're trying to get around the

00:31:06.120 | room and meet more people?

00:31:07.400 | Yeah. So first of all,

00:31:09.040 | I think it can be helpful to recognize that often the other person is secretly

00:31:14.040 | thinking the same thing they're thinking I've loved this conversation,

00:31:17.800 | but I could really use a refill on my drink or, you know,

00:31:20.600 | I'd like to go chat with some others. So first of all,

00:31:23.800 | if you are in an in-person setting,

00:31:25.760 | I like to purposefully have as much as possible,

00:31:28.960 | a half empty drink or a nearly empty food plate.

00:31:32.200 | So I can use that as an excuse. It's a universal human excuse. Oh,

00:31:36.240 | Chris, it's been great catching up, but I actually am going to go get a refill,

00:31:39.680 | but I'll catch you later. Or, you know,

00:31:41.360 | I think I'm going to go try more of that guacamole. I don't know. I love food.

00:31:44.680 | I'm very food motivated. I find that people tend to react really well.

00:31:48.000 | If there's no food or drinks or you have a full drink, that's not an option.

00:31:51.440 | I think sometimes you can just be really kind, but direct.

00:31:54.200 | Maybe they've told you about something, let's say a work accomplishment,

00:31:57.440 | you know, wow, that's, that's really incredible. You must be really proud.

00:32:01.000 | Well, I'd love to hear more about that.

00:32:03.200 | I actually need to walk around the room quickly and there's a few people I need

00:32:06.320 | to catch up with, but,

00:32:07.280 | but let's swap information and maybe we can follow up later on.

00:32:09.880 | Or I think sometimes just saying that I've really loved talking to you,

00:32:15.160 | but I would love to continue this later.

00:32:17.600 | And as much as it can be awkward to do often,

00:32:20.560 | the other person is grateful. And in fact,

00:32:22.920 | if I'm speaking with someone who's much more important than me, for example,

00:32:26.720 | a speaker at a conference, or, you know, when I've met, you know,

00:32:30.120 | various tech celebrities,

00:32:31.840 | I always make a point of ending the conversation first because no one ever does

00:32:36.400 | it with them. And it's such a power move to be talking to, you know, Elon Musk.

00:32:40.920 | It'd be like, well, it was amazing getting to meet you,

00:32:43.120 | but I'm going to go grab another drink, but hopefully see you around people.

00:32:47.120 | I find it's actually whatever the situation,

00:32:49.560 | it can be such a great way of acknowledging the other person's time.

00:32:54.000 | And the fact that they likely have a long agenda,

00:32:56.360 | if the conversation is meant to continue,

00:32:57.920 | you can find each other later at the event or in a separate follow-on.

00:33:01.040 | Yeah. Yeah. And those follow-ons, I tend to say,

00:33:04.680 | try to come up with some next step. If you want to meet this person,

00:33:07.480 | as opposed to waiting,

00:33:08.840 | people are always more willing to commit to things in person.

00:33:12.600 | So if you're trying to get someone to introduce you to someone person at their

00:33:17.160 | company or a friend of theirs,

00:33:18.440 | just ask because if you wait until you send an email,

00:33:22.400 | it's so easy for someone to say no. But if you say, Hey,

00:33:25.280 | would you be willing to introduce me to this person? People are really,

00:33:28.960 | really uncomfortable saying no in person.

00:33:31.040 | So that's also something I always suggest in person.

00:33:34.120 | Yes. And definitely just head on.

00:33:36.000 | I think the importance of following up saying, you know, the next day,

00:33:40.440 | sometimes even that, that same day, sending a quick email.

00:33:43.840 | So great to talk to you, you know, as we discussed, I'd love to X, Y, Z,

00:33:47.960 | putting it in writing, getting that quick follow-up.

00:33:50.680 | Often I find I'll need to send a second note a few days later because many

00:33:54.920 | people get backlogged on email right after they speak or when they're at an

00:33:58.840 | event, but that's okay.

00:33:59.880 | I think it's just helpful to really be fairly quick with that follow-up while

00:34:04.200 | things are still fresh.

00:34:05.080 | And ideally while they're still feeling the enthusiasm of the human connection

00:34:09.520 | of the conversation that you two had.

00:34:11.280 | So don't follow any dating rules. Don't wait seven days.

00:34:15.280 | Just follow up quick.

00:34:17.040 | Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know,

00:34:19.280 | there are many parallels between dating and professional connections,

00:34:23.400 | but I absolutely think that this is not one you don't want to play too hard to

00:34:28.120 | get,

00:34:28.560 | especially if you're in the position of looking to build your network,

00:34:32.240 | looking to meet new people, you know,

00:34:35.120 | people often respond very favorably to the kind of clearly expressed

00:34:40.160 | intention that you admire their career.

00:34:42.720 | You'd like to get to know them better or learn from them or something like that.

00:34:46.280 | So it's not a time to beat around the bush.

00:34:48.400 | Yeah, totally.

00:34:50.280 | So I want to, before we jump into kind of actually finding opportunities that

00:34:54.920 | could be interesting,

00:34:55.760 | there's a part of the book that talks about building your personal brand.

00:34:59.040 | And when I hear someone talk about building their personal brand,

00:35:02.680 | my immediate reaction is, "Oh, I've got to go become a YouTube influencer.

00:35:06.960 | And I have to start creating video content every day and posting on social

00:35:10.640 | media." Is it really about all of that? Or does it have to be about all that?

00:35:14.800 | No, it does not.

00:35:15.760 | But I love that because you're exactly right that many people have this

00:35:20.360 | idea that having a personal brand is synonymous with

00:35:24.720 | being an influencer or spending hours every week crafting an online

00:35:29.360 | persona. The fact is you have a personal brand,

00:35:32.920 | whether you've thought about it or not, everyone does.

00:35:35.680 | Your personal brand is how people talk about you when you're not in the room.

00:35:40.440 | And it's sometimes uncomfortable to think about that.

00:35:44.000 | But every single one of us is referred to or discussed in various

00:35:48.960 | casual ways by colleagues, by bosses, by others when we're not there.

00:35:53.640 | And so I like to think about it, first of all, as this question,

00:35:57.120 | what do you want to be known for? So what are the attributes,

00:36:01.880 | the adjectives and the accomplishments that you want people to think of

00:36:06.560 | when they say your name? And, you know,

00:36:08.840 | if you want to think about building a personal brand, again,

00:36:11.600 | this doesn't have to be an arduous process,

00:36:13.200 | but I think it is really,

00:36:14.480 | really important in today's world because of how interconnected we are

00:36:18.840 | on social media,

00:36:20.000 | because of the way that your reputation is going to precede you in so many

00:36:24.760 | different aspects of your professional career and frankly,

00:36:27.480 | your personal life as well. And so, again,

00:36:30.000 | just like I talked about the beginning of a job search is often that period of

00:36:34.080 | self-reflection or self-discovery.

00:36:36.000 | I think that a good personal brand exploration starts the same way.

00:36:41.080 | Just thinking, what do I want to be known for? If you have the time,

00:36:45.280 | I love to recommend that you ask colleagues, bosses, friends,

00:36:48.680 | what do you think I'm known for?

00:36:50.360 | What do you think are some of the adjectives people would use to describe me?

00:36:54.640 | What are some of my strengths?

00:36:56.200 | And then ideally think about a few key words or phrases that

00:37:01.120 | are really important. Maybe it's around your creativity.

00:37:04.240 | Maybe it's your consistency and dependability.

00:37:07.640 | Maybe it's your financial acumen, your sort of, you know,

00:37:10.400 | facility with numbers, like whatever it is,

00:37:12.480 | just getting really clear about how you want to be known is step one.

00:37:16.280 | And then thinking about how you consistently communicate that, you know,

00:37:19.440 | a very baseline place is your social profiles, your LinkedIn, your Twitter,

00:37:24.480 | your Instagram. If you have them,

00:37:25.840 | I think it's important also to know that that you should have them consistency,

00:37:29.320 | but that doesn't mean sameness.

00:37:31.040 | So every profile shouldn't look exactly the same because you know,

00:37:35.440 | because they're not the same platforms, right?

00:37:36.920 | If I showed up exactly the same way on Instagram that I do on LinkedIn,

00:37:41.080 | one of those would be a really awkward fit,

00:37:43.160 | but I should clearly seem like the same person with some of the same key

00:37:47.960 | values. So whether that's authenticity, you know,

00:37:51.280 | my interest in the future of work and talent,

00:37:54.280 | just really being deliberate and specific,

00:37:57.280 | making sure that you have a reasonably good photo of yourself on each platform.

00:38:01.320 | I think that can be very helpful.

00:38:02.920 | And then I would really recommend that people consider a personal website.

00:38:06.400 | Now, of course it depends on what you do.

00:38:08.600 | It's not as relevant for every career field, but it really,

00:38:11.840 | you can think of it as a piece of real estate on the internet where you can say

00:38:16.720 | exactly what you want about who you are and what you're good at.

00:38:20.440 | Just gives you a little bit more space to talk about key accomplishments,

00:38:24.920 | share examples of your work. If it's digitally available,

00:38:28.880 | perhaps include video clips or again,

00:38:32.200 | just a bit of additional text and give people a way to get in contact with you.

00:38:36.200 | That is not just a Twitter DM or LinkedIn in mail.

00:38:40.360 | So we have a lot of tips on the muse for specifically how to think about building

00:38:44.160 | a personal website,

00:38:45.000 | but I think that they can be a really,

00:38:46.800 | really powerful and they're often underused. And also, again,

00:38:49.640 | if you're reaching out to industry influencers or others to set up networking

00:38:54.600 | events, informational interviews,

00:38:56.160 | being able to link to a few key places online that very clearly

00:39:01.400 | and concisely give a sense of, again, who you are, what you stand for,

00:39:05.480 | what you're known for is really important.

00:39:07.320 | If you want people to respond to your email. So is it your LinkedIn profile?

00:39:10.960 | That is that kind of key best thing. Is it a personal website?

00:39:15.240 | Maybe if you're a creative, it's your Tik TOK, whatever it is,

00:39:18.400 | just really know that you're crafting it so that someone gets as

00:39:23.240 | accurate an impression of you as possible in a fairly short amount of time

00:39:27.920 | and know that people are going to be Googling you all the time for professional

00:39:32.280 | opportunities for personal opportunities. So the more, again,

00:39:35.560 | that you can be intentional about how you show up online, the better.

00:39:39.000 | Yeah.

00:39:39.840 | I think sometimes people think they have to go write blog posts and create

00:39:43.080 | content to manage their brand.

00:39:44.920 | But for the longest time I had my name.com and it was literally just a

00:39:49.680 | website that had some social links and three sentences about me in a photo.

00:39:53.360 | And, you know, the crazy thing was, if you search for my name,

00:39:57.200 | now that's one of the things that pops up.

00:39:58.800 | It's this website that didn't have a lot of information on it,

00:40:01.320 | but just gave people a very easy way to find you

00:40:06.040 | and links in your email address and that kind of stuff,

00:40:08.360 | which comes up with another question, you know, maybe 20 years ago,

00:40:11.240 | it wouldn't have been a thing. But nowadays,

00:40:13.680 | I think with so many social platforms and employers, you know,

00:40:17.120 | Googling employees, is it now okay to have pictures of,

00:40:21.600 | of yourself just having a good time on the internet and are all employers okay

00:40:25.760 | with that? Or are certain industries a little turned off by that?

00:40:28.680 | Or what's the latest policy on what you post on Instagram or Twitter?

00:40:32.800 | Yeah. So I love that you asked this because it is a constantly changing

00:40:37.800 | answer as sort of society adapts to the

00:40:42.480 | proliferation of images and video and information on social.

00:40:46.040 | I would say first of all that most employers recognize that you and me,

00:40:50.280 | like we're humans, we have fun, we see friends, we socialize,

00:40:55.080 | we might drink an alcoholic beverage.

00:40:56.480 | So I think it's important to use your judgment for the majority of industries

00:41:00.520 | and the majority of employers,

00:41:01.920 | casual photos of someone drinking or having fun on a social platform are not

00:41:06.360 | going to be a problem at all. That said,

00:41:08.800 | there's a few exceptions and certain industries are more,

00:41:12.880 | more strict. And I can talk about that in a second,

00:41:15.560 | but you know,

00:41:16.400 | if you had a photo of yourself doing a keg stand or some sort of like extreme

00:41:21.520 | drinking event,

00:41:23.040 | I'd probably recommend if you're thinking about changing jobs that you consider

00:41:26.560 | taking it down or at least removing your name.

00:41:28.440 | If you have some very incendiary or controversial political views,

00:41:33.080 | that can be another thing that can hamper you in a job search.

00:41:36.240 | Now some people decide this is me and I don't want to be hired by someone who has

00:41:41.240 | a problem with anything I say or do online.

00:41:43.560 | And that is an acceptable approach. But if you don't feel that way,

00:41:46.880 | if you want to think about this as, you know, that's my personal life,

00:41:50.200 | but I don't want it to interfere with my job,

00:41:52.000 | then I often recommend do a Google search on yourself,

00:41:54.960 | look at your social profiles and just, you know,

00:41:57.600 | think about are there things that might, that might really surprise someone.

00:42:02.080 | Now a few industries,

00:42:03.520 | a financial services can be a bit more particular when it comes to a social

00:42:08.560 | events on social media,

00:42:11.440 | things like client service or therapists where it's one-on-one again, it's,

00:42:15.000 | it's very complicated because you still have in some cases a generation that

00:42:20.000 | didn't grow up with their lives online judging a generation that did.

00:42:24.840 | So that adds some complexity because it's very easy to throw stones about social

00:42:29.280 | media. If you know,

00:42:30.520 | Facebook and Instagram didn't come around until you were in your mid to late

00:42:33.640 | thirties. But at the same time, I think by and large,

00:42:37.080 | hiring managers are much more relaxed about this type of thing than they were in

00:42:41.000 | the past. And they're not going to begrudge someone who's, you know,

00:42:44.040 | having a good time, enjoying themselves,

00:42:46.640 | unless it sort of crosses a line that I would say is, is again, you know,

00:42:51.200 | pretty extreme drinking, uh, very controversial statements.

00:42:55.680 | That is probably where I would, I would suggest like,

00:42:58.520 | just unless you really feel committed to it, just take your name off it, you know,

00:43:03.040 | make it, make it a little bit less because job searching is already hard enough.

00:43:06.280 | And do you really want to worry?

00:43:07.840 | Did I not get that interview because of how I answered that second question or

00:43:11.920 | because they saw this diatribe that I went on? And again,

00:43:16.640 | I find that personally,

00:43:17.960 | I like to keep the focus on my professional skills and abilities and not so much

00:43:22.080 | on, on things that might be controversial.

00:43:23.760 | Totally agree. I, one tip is if you're trying to Google yourself,

00:43:28.400 | make sure you do it from an incognito window,

00:43:30.320 | because sometimes you'll search and the results will be different than if someone

00:43:34.080 | else was, yes, that is an important one, by the way. And I tend to say, you know,

00:43:38.520 | go two to three pages potentially into your results.

00:43:42.760 | You don't necessarily need to go 10.

00:43:44.360 | If somebody is 10 pages deep on your results,

00:43:46.320 | they're really doing a forensic audit.

00:43:48.560 | You can if you're concerned about what's there,

00:43:50.680 | but most employers are looking at the first page of Google,

00:43:53.680 | maybe the first two, very rarely the third. It's,

00:43:57.320 | it's unusual in my experience that someone will go any deeper than that.

00:44:01.960 | So that's, that's a lot about how you can prepare before you're kind of ready

00:44:05.960 | for this.

00:44:06.320 | This is stuff you can do when you're not even looking for a job when you have

00:44:09.920 | more free time.

00:44:10.760 | But if you start thinking about what you want to do next and you have a few

00:44:15.040 | ideas,

00:44:15.880 | what do you think is the right approach today in this kind of modern

00:44:20.280 | workplace to find opportunities?

00:44:22.800 | I like to recommend a three pronged approach because I think it's helpful to

00:44:27.960 | have a few different irons in the fire when you're thinking about changing a

00:44:31.880 | job. So first and foremost,

00:44:34.680 | I do think the use of specialized job sites,

00:44:38.880 | obviously I run one, the muse.com. So I'm not unbiased here,

00:44:42.360 | but focused sites like the muse that give you access to, you know,

00:44:46.920 | a really diverse set of offerings that let you see jobs, you know,

00:44:50.560 | on our site, for example, you can search for jobs by, do they have, you know,

00:44:54.680 | maternity or paternity leave? Do they offer tuition reimbursement?

00:44:57.800 | Like it's a good way to get a broad sense of a lot of opportunities in the

00:45:02.400 | market, including things that you may not have heard of.

00:45:04.840 | So I think that's one step and we can talk more about that.

00:45:07.360 | Second is specific company websites and social media. So, you know,

00:45:11.760 | are there places that are already on your radar as a companies you might want to

00:45:16.400 | work for, follow them on social,

00:45:18.360 | look to see if they have job search specific social channels. For example,

00:45:23.480 | I think NPR has at NPR jobs on Twitter, just, just about working at NPR.

00:45:28.360 | A lot of companies have kind of focused social media handles just on both their

00:45:33.320 | employee experience and the roles that they're hiring for looking on the company

00:45:36.720 | websites and understanding,

00:45:38.120 | is there a talent pool to sign up for because some companies actually end up

00:45:42.240 | searching internal talent pools or lists of people who have expressed interest

00:45:46.960 | in working at that company before they post roles externally.

00:45:49.880 | So having a short list of companies that you're interested in getting on their

00:45:53.040 | radar, definitely helpful. And then finally your network. And, you know,

00:45:56.960 | we talked about this from the perspective of building your network the

00:46:00.800 | perspective of having informational interviews,

00:46:03.320 | but it's very helpful regardless of where you are in your career to tap your

00:46:07.760 | network for potential job opportunities.

00:46:09.640 | One thing I like to do is a group email because I think that an individual email

00:46:14.720 | one-on-one can be great for people, you know, really well,

00:46:18.760 | but for people who you're less close to,

00:46:20.840 | sometimes people don't know how to handle it if they don't personally feel

00:46:24.680 | comfortable or know you well enough to help.

00:46:26.600 | So I like sometimes sending a BCC email to a small group of people that says,

00:46:31.640 | you know, friends, if you're on this list,

00:46:34.200 | it's because I really value your professional opinion.

00:46:36.720 | And I wanted to enlist your help in my upcoming job search.

00:46:40.840 | This is a really great opportunity to be very clear about that personal brand,

00:46:46.160 | those personal brand attributes and adjectives that we talked about before.

00:46:50.000 | So you want to concisely explain what it is that you're very good at,

00:46:54.680 | what it is that you're looking for and how your network can help. So, you know,

00:46:58.080 | I am a healthcare administrator with X years of experience. I focus on this,

00:47:02.720 | my peers and previous managers would say that I excel at this.

00:47:07.600 | That by the way,

00:47:08.400 | is one of my favorite tips in interviewing as well as in outreach emails is,

00:47:13.400 | and again,

00:47:14.160 | it has to be honest because many of these people may know or talk to your peers

00:47:18.800 | and former managers and you don't want to be caught in any sort of falsehood.

00:47:22.880 | But for things that are true for things that you hear often, rather than saying,

00:47:26.960 | you know, I am great at this, people think I am this,

00:47:29.640 | being able to say colleagues and managers frequently describe me as XYZ listing

00:47:34.880 | out some of those adjectives or talking about some of your accomplishments that

00:47:38.640 | others would verify is helpful. And then I would say,

00:47:41.280 | give your network specific ways that they can help.

00:47:43.440 | I like to keep the body of the email short and sweet and say, you know,

00:47:47.000 | read on below my signature for a list of example companies I'm interested in and

00:47:50.920 | more details. But really you can, you know,

00:47:53.120 | this is an opportunity to ask for introductions at specific dream employers,

00:47:57.640 | list out some of the types of jobs you're looking for. And this can be really,

00:48:01.640 | really effective tool if used well,

00:48:04.240 | but I would say generally you want to send maybe one of these per person per job

00:48:09.480 | search. So it can be less useful if you're following up with people again and

00:48:14.720 | again and again, Hey, help me.

00:48:15.800 | Cause you never want your network to feel like you're pushing the responsibility

00:48:19.320 | of you getting a job on them.

00:48:20.840 | Yeah. And I've found when you're sending these emails,

00:48:25.040 | sometimes I'll go as far as to say, Hey,

00:48:27.120 | if you want to introduce me to someone here is a blurb of text at the bottom of

00:48:30.880 | the email that says, Hey, I want to introduce you to Chris.

00:48:33.760 | He's looking for this, you know, here's a little blurb of his background.

00:48:36.960 | Try to make it as easy as possible for the person that wants to help because

00:48:41.560 | they're already going to be doing work for you.

00:48:43.560 | And if you can make it less work, they're just more likely to help.

00:48:46.240 | Yes, I completely agree. I love that.

00:48:49.200 | When people reach out to me and say, Catherine, I'm looking for X, you know,

00:48:54.320 | who can you introduce me to?

00:48:55.720 | That's sometimes a much harder question to answer than when someone's like

00:49:00.440 | Catherine, I'm looking for this. I noticed in your network,

00:49:03.960 | you're connected to these seven people. Who are you comfortable passing me on?

00:49:07.840 | Can I write a blurb for you to use? You know,

00:49:09.720 | just make it as easy for them as possible because most of the people you're

00:49:13.680 | asking are really busy. Generally, you know,

00:49:16.080 | we have hundreds of undone tasks on our to-do list.

00:49:19.440 | And so the more that you help someone help you,

00:49:22.120 | the more likely they are to do it.

00:49:23.480 | Yeah.

00:49:25.440 | Sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest impact and trade coffee is a

00:49:31.160 | great addition to your new year routine.

00:49:33.440 | And I am so excited to be partnering with them today.

00:49:36.120 | Trade is a subscription service we've been using for over a year that sources

00:49:40.120 | the best coffee across the country and brings it straight to your doorstep.

00:49:44.600 | They've built relationships with over 50 local roasters.

00:49:47.760 | So you can enjoy their craft from the comfort of your own home at a fraction of

00:49:52.120 | the cost of going out for coffee.

00:49:53.920 | There's multiple ways to experience coffee with trade,

00:49:57.120 | sign up for a subscription or try one of their starter packs today.

00:50:00.920 | It's been so convenient for us to have coffee just show up exactly when we need

00:50:05.360 | it. And over the past year, we've gotten so many great coffees from trade,

00:50:09.400 | but this last bag of beans from drink coffee, do stuff in Tahoe,

00:50:13.560 | it's called bark the moon and it's so delicious.

00:50:16.520 | So jumpstart this year by signing up for a trade subscription right now,

00:50:20.640 | trade is offering a free bag with select subscription plans.

00:50:24.080 | When you visit all the hacks.com/trade,

00:50:27.560 | that's all the hacks.com/trade for a free bag with select subscription

00:50:32.640 | plans, all the hacks.com/trade.

00:50:35.680 | Do you all remember episode one 22,

00:50:39.840 | when I spoke to chef David Chang about leveling up your cooking at home?

00:50:43.760 | If not, definitely go back and give it a listen.

00:50:46.240 | But one of his top hacks was using the microwave more. I'll admit,

00:50:50.480 | I was a skeptic at first,

00:50:52.000 | but after getting a full set of microwave cookware from any day,

00:50:55.680 | I'm a total convert and I'm excited to partner with them for this episode.

00:50:59.480 | Any day is glass cookware specifically designed to make delicious food from

00:51:03.800 | scratch in the microwave.

00:51:05.240 | And honestly using it feels like a kitchen cheat code because it speeds up and

00:51:09.960 | simplifies the process so much.

00:51:12.040 | The cookware is a hundred percent plastic free and you can cook, serve,

00:51:16.080 | store and reheat all in the same dish that happens to be dishwasher,

00:51:20.760 | freezer and oven safe too.

00:51:22.560 | And if you need a recipe suggestion to kick off your any day adventure,

00:51:26.080 | I highly recommend David Chang's salmon rice. It is so good.

00:51:30.280 | And if you haven't checked out the matte black IO collection they launched last

00:51:35.040 | year, you have to check it out. So to get 15% off our new favorite cookware,

00:51:40.040 | go to allthehacks.com/anyday. Again,

00:51:44.360 | that's allthehacks.com/anyday for 15% off.

00:51:49.040 | I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.

00:51:54.400 | Your support is what keeps this show going. To get all of the URLs, codes,

00:51:59.400 | deals, and discounts from our partners,

00:52:01.680 | you can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

00:52:04.960 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:52:08.400 | And sometimes if I didn't want to bother people in my network for something,

00:52:11.800 | or I found that I'm making too many requests,

00:52:14.200 | I'll just find the email address of the person I'm trying to be introduced to.

00:52:17.720 | And I won't say that this person has endorsed this introduction,

00:52:21.200 | but I'll mention in the email, I'm like, Hey,

00:52:23.360 | it looks like we're both connected to Catherine. That's great.

00:52:26.080 | It's better than a cold email, but not as good as a warm intro,

00:52:29.800 | but it's somewhere in the middle. So you can do that.

00:52:32.480 | Even if someone doesn't have the time to help out.

00:52:34.600 | Yes. And again, you brought up a really great point,

00:52:37.480 | which is people are more likely to answer you or to help you if you have common

00:52:42.480 | points of interest or people in common. So whether it's someone you both know,

00:52:48.400 | a school you both went to, even an interest you both had.

00:52:51.720 | When I was telling the story earlier about how I got the muse.com URL,

00:52:55.680 | one of the things I did when I was researching the gentleman who had it is

00:52:59.560 | realized that he had worked in a global health in Newfoundland and I had worked

00:53:04.560 | in global health in East Africa.

00:53:07.000 | And there were some interesting parallels between this past experience.

00:53:10.280 | He had this past experience I had.

00:53:12.480 | And so given that I didn't have any connections to him, when I reached out,

00:53:16.400 | I was able to write my email in a way that highlighted some of the shared

00:53:21.520 | things that we seemed to care about from our online profile. So like you said,

00:53:25.200 | it's less good than a warm intro from someone who knows and loves and respects

00:53:29.920 | you both, but much better than a cold email. I mean,

00:53:32.800 | I get at least 10 emails a week. Hi Catherine, can I pick your brain?

00:53:37.320 | But you know,

00:53:38.240 | they're all fighting with each other for a very limited amount of brain space.

00:53:41.640 | And the ones that have warm connections or shared points of interest or

00:53:46.600 | experience are much more likely to get answered.

00:53:49.240 | Yeah. And if we go through the arc of this process,

00:53:51.480 | you've figured out how to get in touch with people.

00:53:53.960 | You've started to figure out what you care about.

00:53:55.560 | Maybe you've identified a few companies.

00:53:57.280 | Obviously if there is a job posting that you're qualified for and that you're

00:54:01.440 | excited about, you know, you could apply online.

00:54:04.480 | I would treat that personally as the last resort to being able to find someone at

00:54:08.800 | the company that could refer you. What about when there's not a job posted?

00:54:13.160 | If you found a company and you're like, I'm very excited to work here,

00:54:16.360 | but there's not something on their careers page or listed anywhere.

00:54:19.560 | What do you tell people to do?

00:54:20.560 | Yeah, absolutely. That happens frequently, by the way, most companies,

00:54:24.520 | especially small companies want to hear from you directly. Larger companies,

00:54:29.040 | it can be a bit more complicated because they often are so deluged by applicants

00:54:33.920 | that they set up guardrails and blockages. But I would say, first of all,

00:54:37.960 | look to see again, like we were saying,

00:54:40.400 | do you have anyone in your network who works at this company or is connected to

00:54:45.360 | someone who works at this company?

00:54:46.760 | Can you get connected to someone who you can say,

00:54:50.200 | I'm really interested in what your company does.

00:54:52.880 | I'm excited about working for you. Are there opportunities? You know,

00:54:56.920 | here's what I'm good at. For larger companies,

00:54:59.040 | they sometimes have what's called a talent network, which I mentioned earlier,

00:55:02.320 | where you can send in a general application,

00:55:05.680 | which essentially describes who you are, what you're good at,

00:55:09.920 | what you're sort of known for and your skills are,

00:55:13.040 | and then stays in their database.

00:55:14.960 | But I find that if you can go in through someone directly,

00:55:18.400 | that's always the best move. But actually I would say, and this sort of,

00:55:22.320 | I maybe push back a little bit on the point you said before,

00:55:25.760 | I think sometimes doing more than one thing is best.

00:55:28.920 | So even if you know someone,

00:55:30.640 | I would often tell people apply to the talent network as well, because,

00:55:35.640 | you know, worst case, you're just duplicating your efforts. Best case,

00:55:39.560 | it's another way in another point of contact. Similarly,

00:55:42.760 | when you think about online job sites, you know,

00:55:45.000 | they get a bad rap because like Indeed is the biggest one, right?

00:55:49.040 | Our data right now from a bunch of our customers shows that on average,

00:55:53.520 | employers are making about one hire for every 600 applicants from

00:55:58.480 | Indeed. So no wonder it feels like it's just going into a black hole. But for,

00:56:02.920 | you know, a lot of focus sites like the Muse,

00:56:05.200 | the ratio is like one to 100 or one to 200.

00:56:09.200 | It still means there's a lot of competition.

00:56:11.240 | It's still best if you have a human intro or a connection. But even, you know,

00:56:15.520 | if somebody reaches out to me through a referral, Oh, you know,

00:56:19.280 | Chris is great at this. Like, you know, you,

00:56:21.160 | you guys should talk to him for that role you're hiring for.

00:56:23.320 | I often will still ask the person to apply as well through our

00:56:28.200 | online postings so that they're in our systems.

00:56:30.440 | And I think I often say like you can't go wrong by doing a mix of

00:56:35.280 | both sometimes at the same company.

00:56:37.360 | Cause I think the latest statistics I've heard are that 56% of

00:56:42.240 | all jobs are filled today through online job postings.

00:56:45.560 | So while I would always recommend that people do their best to find the

00:56:49.920 | connection, do the informational interview, you know, network your way in,

00:56:53.560 | it is certainly a higher likelihood way of success.

00:56:56.720 | There are a lot of jobs that get filled from online pools.

00:56:59.960 | And so I think it's helpful to think about both because particularly for people

00:57:04.040 | that don't have a strong of a network, I think that you can,

00:57:06.680 | sometimes people despair. They're like,

00:57:08.480 | I'll never get the job if I don't have a connection.

00:57:10.960 | And that's actually not true. Again,

00:57:13.280 | if you have an opportunity to make a connection, do it.

00:57:16.200 | And when you get further along in your career,

00:57:18.320 | the closer you are to an executive or a senior role,

00:57:22.120 | the more important connections become the earlier you are in your career,

00:57:26.200 | the more jobs tend to get filled through online portals,

00:57:30.680 | company websites, et cetera,

00:57:32.320 | partially because of just the volume of roles being hired.

00:57:34.880 | But I think that being really thoughtful about multiple channels is helpful.

00:57:39.560 | And again, you will ultimately,

00:57:41.080 | if you especially are excited about particular opportunities,

00:57:43.400 | you want to maximize your chance of success.

00:57:45.120 | Yeah. And if there's no job posting, I wouldn't be afraid to just reach out.

00:57:49.960 | I know there was a company I really wanted to work at at one point called Simple

00:57:53.280 | Geo, and there was no job opening.

00:57:55.000 | And I just decided that this is the company I want to work at.

00:57:57.680 | And instead of applying to 20 jobs,

00:58:00.280 | I overcommitted to this and I emailed everyone I knew that knew the company.

00:58:04.920 | Finally, someone said they'd forward an email to one of the founders.

00:58:08.640 | And I said, "Hey, I really want to work at your company. Here's what I do.

00:58:12.160 | Can I give you a presentation on why you should consider talking to me?"

00:58:15.600 | And they gave me 15 minutes and I gave a presentation to one of the founders of

00:58:20.280 | the company and kind of convinced them that they should consider hiring me.

00:58:24.440 | They ended up hiring me to do a freelance project that eventually became a job.

00:58:28.720 | But I think people maybe don't always realize how valuable

00:58:33.960 | passion for the company is as an attribute of a candidate.

00:58:38.400 | And when I'm looking to hire people at Wealthfront,

00:58:41.880 | when I see people email me and I can just tell that they're excited about the

00:58:46.440 | product, they're excited about working here, they've done their homework,

00:58:49.520 | it bubbles them up to the top of the list.

00:58:52.200 | Not that I would hire them over a more qualified candidate,

00:58:55.480 | but I would definitely want to talk to them knowing that they're so excited.

00:58:59.040 | And sometimes that happens for roles that we know we're going to hire for in the

00:59:03.160 | future, but we don't have listed.

00:59:05.400 | So if you're really, really excited about a company,

00:59:08.080 | I wouldn't let the fact that there's not an opening now dissuade you from

00:59:12.240 | reaching out and applying for a job that doesn't exist.

00:59:15.040 | Yes. Because I think that, again, when you're in the job search seat,

00:59:19.240 | you can be really fixated on like,

00:59:22.560 | how am I going to convince the right company to hire me?

00:59:26.200 | But it's helpful to remember that companies are sitting there thinking, wow,

00:59:30.400 | how are we going to get the right people for all this work that we have to do?

00:59:33.760 | And if you can show up to a company and demonstrate that you might be the right

00:59:38.400 | person and that you have that passion and that commitment, as you said,

00:59:42.400 | they're in some cases, very incentivized to create a role for you,

00:59:46.600 | to accelerate a role that maybe they'd been planning to hire for in two or three

00:59:50.560 | months, but suddenly a great candidate shows up, you know,

00:59:53.400 | who wouldn't want to just fill the role if they have the budget now to do so.

00:59:57.800 | So I couldn't agree more. And actually I was,

00:59:59.720 | I was trying to flip through the pages of my book to find this specific email

01:00:04.440 | that I got early on in the muse.

01:00:06.200 | I had been thinking about hiring someone in marketing.

01:00:09.560 | I'd actually been talking to a woman that I thought was interesting.

01:00:13.640 | And right when it started to fall through and it seemed like maybe she wasn't

01:00:17.800 | actually going to be the right fit.

01:00:19.200 | I got a cold email from someone who had seen me speak at a conference and

01:00:23.520 | essentially said, I love your company. I believe in the mission.

01:00:27.120 | I want to be part of it. Exactly like you said, here's, here's who I am.

01:00:30.560 | Here's what I'm good at. You know, if you ever need help,

01:00:33.240 | if you ever need consulting, if I can ever be of assistance,

01:00:35.880 | if there's ever a role, like I am on board, I want this.

01:00:39.440 | And I responded, you know,

01:00:41.280 | a day or so later and I was like actually thinking about hiring a marketer.

01:00:44.400 | And that guy Elliot worked for the muse for years after that.

01:00:47.800 | And it was such a core part of our early growth. And it's all because like you

01:00:51.600 | said, we didn't have a role posted, but he reached out.

01:00:54.200 | Yeah. I've, I've hired multiple people for that. I've done that myself.

01:00:59.200 | Big fan of that approach. So you, you wrote a whole book about this.

01:01:02.640 | We could spend another hour on interviewing and negotiating.

01:01:05.440 | So I'll ask a few tactical questions just to kind of fly through things.

01:01:09.160 | Is there an interview question you think even the most senior candidates always

01:01:13.120 | get wrong? Well,

01:01:15.240 | everybody struggles with tell me about your biggest weakness,

01:01:19.000 | because it can be such a hard and

01:01:24.120 | vulnerable thing to cop to your true biggest weakness. Frankly,

01:01:28.200 | some people don't know it.

01:01:29.120 | And I would say that's the biggest problem is when people are not self-aware

01:01:32.480 | enough to know their biggest weakness.

01:01:34.480 | I think it is important to be honest because good interviewers are looking for

01:01:38.480 | self-awareness at the same time,

01:01:40.080 | recognize that if your biggest weakness overlaps with one of the most important

01:01:44.920 | criteria for doing this job, well, you will probably not get the job,

01:01:48.360 | but frankly, you probably shouldn't get that job.

01:01:50.680 | So I think that there's a way to answer that question that can focus on

01:01:55.600 | an area. That's a known weakness, what you've done to mitigate it,

01:01:59.320 | why you're committed to improving it.

01:02:01.120 | And ideally have it be something that's a true weakness.

01:02:03.880 | That is not a core need for the role you're interviewing for,

01:02:07.240 | because that can make it very,

01:02:08.560 | very hard for an interviewer to feel comfortable giving you the job.

01:02:11.920 | I've been surprised how often candidates,

01:02:14.680 | even senior candidates will not do a good job of answering,

01:02:18.240 | why do you want to work here or what attracted you to this company?

01:02:22.840 | If the answer feels trite, if it feels very surface level,

01:02:28.080 | it's so much less compelling than someone who is immediately

01:02:32.080 | clear why this company is so exciting for them.

01:02:36.960 | It's kind of like we were joking before about areas where job search is not

01:02:40.360 | similar to dating. This is one where it is very similar.

01:02:42.680 | People don't want to date someone who just wants a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

01:02:46.920 | That's not very appealing.

01:02:47.920 | You want someone who's specifically interested in you.

01:02:51.000 | And for many interviewers is exactly the same.

01:02:54.160 | They want the candidate to have done deep research and to really clearly be

01:02:59.160 | able to articulate why this company, why this role. So that's another one.

01:03:03.800 | I mean, honestly, interviewing is tricky.

01:03:06.680 | It's one of the things we have,

01:03:08.120 | I would guess probably 3000 interviewing articles on themuse.com,

01:03:13.640 | but partially it's, you know, we've got articles for different functional areas,

01:03:17.240 | different types of questions, different seniorities. It is a challenge.

01:03:20.200 | And I think, you know,

01:03:20.840 | I do recommend people practice a bit if you haven't interviewed in a while just

01:03:24.480 | to get some of the kinks out. But at the same time,

01:03:26.920 | the interviewer generally wants to find someone great.

01:03:29.760 | They want you to do well. So I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.

01:03:34.560 | Yeah. We will link to some of these articles in the show notes for people looking

01:03:38.720 | for them. Okay. Few last quick things. When people find that job,

01:03:43.200 | do you think negotiating is something that people should be doing more of?

01:03:47.080 | Yes, I do.

01:03:48.200 | Although I think you can take cues from the employer on which of the

01:03:53.400 | many different areas to negotiate our best. So first of all,

01:03:57.800 | most of the time when an employer gives an initial offer,

01:04:02.160 | it is negotiable unless they very explicitly say that this is, for example,

01:04:07.160 | the same offer we give every single person in this role.

01:04:10.320 | Or if you're being hired for a role,

01:04:13.400 | that's one of a number of identical things, be it customer service reps,

01:04:18.240 | consultants at a large consulting firm, et cetera.

01:04:21.040 | Sometimes there's low flexibility, but for most companies, most roles,

01:04:24.440 | imagine there's at least five to 10% flexibility in the first salary number that

01:04:29.400 | you're offered. And I think it generally doesn't hurt to say, first of all,

01:04:33.400 | thank you so much for the offer. I'm very excited about the company,

01:04:37.080 | but I just need to take a day or two to consider a few things.

01:04:41.920 | You know, can I come back to you?

01:04:43.160 | Sometimes that's helpful for people who are not as comfortable negotiating as

01:04:47.280 | immediately going into a negotiation and lets you really sit back and think,

01:04:51.360 | what do I want to ask for? How do I want to ask for it?

01:04:54.200 | And then I often recommend that people lay out a few different things.

01:04:57.880 | So first of all, what's your desired salary range?

01:05:00.800 | You can do some research on various online platforms to understand what

01:05:05.360 | other companies might be paying for this role.

01:05:07.760 | Know that different platforms do have very different ranges.

01:05:12.000 | We find that when we benchmark that certain platforms are consistently higher

01:05:16.680 | than others in terms of their ideal or their kind of target salary ranges.

01:05:20.640 | So I suggest check out a few,

01:05:22.440 | but I think it is very common and often expected that

01:05:27.560 | you go back to the hiring manager. Again,

01:05:29.360 | I always recommend that you first start by really reiterating

01:05:34.800 | how appreciative or excited you are. You know,

01:05:36.880 | you want the conversation to feel like you're two future great collaborators

01:05:41.280 | working in unison towards the ideal outcome,

01:05:44.040 | which is that you join the company and everyone's happy. So, you know,

01:05:47.120 | thank you so much. I really appreciated this.

01:05:50.080 | I wanted to come back and talk about salary.

01:05:53.200 | I'd be really excited to accept this role.

01:05:55.440 | If you could get in the range of X or based on my research,

01:05:59.360 | I've seen benchmarks for this role that are in a range of Y.

01:06:03.640 | Do you think that's something you can do?

01:06:05.480 | The more that you can make it a collaborative process and less like an

01:06:08.440 | ultimatum, the more likely it is to start the relationship off on the right foot.

01:06:12.240 | It's also helpful to understand internally,

01:06:14.440 | is this a question of I would take this role no matter what,

01:06:17.480 | and I just want to try and negotiate for a slightly higher base,

01:06:20.960 | which I absolutely would encourage you to do. Or is this,

01:06:24.320 | I would only take this role if they can meet certain criteria,

01:06:27.480 | knowing that internally helps you frame your negotiation.

01:06:31.080 | And it also minimizes unpleasant surprises.

01:06:33.680 | If you do end up unintentionally communicating that you absolutely must have a

01:06:38.360 | company get to a certain number to say yes, and then they don't get there.

01:06:41.520 | And they're like, okay, sorry,

01:06:42.640 | we offered the job to someone else and you're heartbroken.

01:06:45.040 | So I think it's important to advocate for yourself,

01:06:48.160 | but also understand what is the outcome you're looking for.

01:06:51.000 | It's also important to remember. It's not just salary.

01:06:53.560 | People think negotiation salary and yes, that's very important.

01:06:57.480 | And I would absolutely start there, but you can also negotiate other things.

01:07:00.800 | One executive that I know negotiated a $10,000 conference

01:07:05.320 | budget as part of her compensation,

01:07:07.560 | because the company was unable to go too much higher on her base comp

01:07:12.560 | because they didn't want her to be out of range with other execs,

01:07:15.280 | but they gave her a $10,000 budget to have travel hotels

01:07:20.600 | and conference fees,

01:07:21.800 | which she used to go to incredible conferences all over the world.

01:07:25.280 | She was also able to, I believe,

01:07:27.360 | negotiate student loan payment reimbursement and a number of other bells and

01:07:32.080 | whistles that were separate from base comp.

01:07:34.320 | Companies sometimes are also more willing to give you bonus comp instead of

01:07:38.560 | base. So if let's say you want 20 K higher,

01:07:41.920 | they come back that they can't do more than 10. It's, you know,

01:07:45.480 | it's often acceptable to ask,

01:07:46.880 | could you add five to $10,000 to the end of your bonus or even your signing

01:07:51.160 | bonus? Yes, absolutely. That's a great point. Signing bonus, relocation bonus.

01:07:55.240 | Sometimes companies just want to be able to say that everyone in this role is

01:07:59.440 | between X and Y thousand dollars of base, but if they really want you,

01:08:02.880 | they're motivated to find a way to make, to make things work.

01:08:05.680 | The one thing I would say that I would also just caution people to avoid is

01:08:09.760 | sometimes you can sour an employer if they feel like it's a,

01:08:14.160 | and one more thing situation. So I think it's helpful if you say, Hey,

01:08:18.320 | I'm really excited about this, but I just need you to get to this number.

01:08:22.080 | If they come back and get to that number,

01:08:24.280 | they're expecting that you're going to say ideally yes,

01:08:28.200 | or maybe you might say I ended up going with another opportunity. That's fine.

01:08:31.760 | But I wouldn't at that point,

01:08:33.400 | come back and be like, thanks for giving me what I asked. And one more thing,

01:08:36.680 | especially if you do that two or three times,

01:08:38.920 | that's when I've seen sometimes company is sour on a candidate.

01:08:42.280 | If they feel like the person is not being straightforward and direct in their

01:08:46.160 | negotiating.

01:08:47.000 | And I would just double down that if you're negotiating with your future boss,

01:08:52.040 | that I would, I would just emphasize that point even more,

01:08:54.800 | because if you're negotiating with a recruiter,

01:08:56.760 | you might not engage with them regularly.

01:08:58.400 | If you're negotiating with your boss,

01:08:59.760 | building a relationship that will hopefully last for a while.

01:09:03.000 | Yes, yes, yes, yes. I would add plus a hundred to that.

01:09:06.520 | Ideally this is a long-term relationship where they are going to be a huge

01:09:11.200 | advocate and supporter of yours. And so again,

01:09:13.960 | making it feel during the negotiation,

01:09:16.240 | like you're on the same side of the table,

01:09:17.920 | trying to mutually get to a great goal is going to be much better for that

01:09:22.080 | relationship than setting something up that feels adversarial.

01:09:24.720 | Yeah. Well, so part three of your book, which we won't get into at all,

01:09:29.840 | it's all about charting your course through the workplace after you're working

01:09:33.720 | there.

01:09:34.440 | And I had intended to try to get to a bunch of questions about communicating with

01:09:38.560 | people, getting raises and promotions, but I'll just have to say,

01:09:42.000 | check out the book or we'll have you back another time,

01:09:44.560 | but it wouldn't be all the hacks if we didn't end asking for your favorite kind

01:09:49.360 | of work life productivity hacks. There are a few in the book,

01:09:52.600 | but I'd love to hear what your favorites are.

01:09:54.600 | Oh my goodness. Well,

01:09:55.640 | I'm a huge lover of pocket to save articles that I want to

01:10:00.520 | read later. My favorite job search hack. And actually I would say this,

01:10:04.080 | this can apply to promotions as well,

01:10:06.000 | which I know we're not getting into in depth,

01:10:07.400 | but I think it can be really useful to print out some job

01:10:11.960 | descriptions for a role you'd like to have in one to three years.

01:10:15.760 | And then use two highlighters, one to highlight the skills you have today,

01:10:19.760 | and one to highlight the skills or experiences that you'd like to acquire in the

01:10:23.800 | next one to three years so that you can be a good fit for those roles.

01:10:27.160 | It's a great way of being really intentional about where you are in your career,

01:10:31.160 | what you have today versus where you want to go.

01:10:33.280 | And then you can use that to raise your hand at work for opportunities or offer

01:10:37.640 | in some cases to take on outside projects that might really well position you

01:10:42.000 | for those titles, you know, you're going to be going after in one to three years.

01:10:44.800 | So that's a good muse hack.

01:10:46.440 | Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. This was awesome.

01:10:49.920 | I really appreciate your time.

01:10:51.880 | And where can people find you and everything you're working on online?

01:10:56.520 | So the muse website is just the muse.com.

01:10:59.840 | That is the biggest repository of career advice, articles,

01:11:03.400 | insight into companies and their values and cultures, job search. For me,

01:11:07.280 | you can find me on Twitter @kaymin, Instagram @kayminshu.

01:11:12.400 | Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get the exact same handle.

01:11:14.880 | You can stalk me on LinkedIn, just Katherine Minshu. And yeah,

01:11:18.600 | I love hearing from people and please follow the muse,

01:11:22.000 | check me out and hopefully we'll do another one of these sometime soon.

01:11:25.040 | Sounds great. Thank you so much for being here.

01:11:27.760 | Awesome. Thank you. This was a ton of fun.

01:11:30.560 | That was so much fun.

01:11:33.960 | I hope that even if you're not looking to change jobs right now,

01:11:36.680 | you learned something valuable.

01:11:37.840 | Do you have any suggestions for a guest or a topic in a future show?

01:11:41.480 | Please let me know. And if you have a minute,

01:11:43.720 | I would really appreciate a few seconds of your time to give a vote to All The

01:11:47.960 | Hacks for an award in the Best New Personal Finance Podcast category.

01:11:52.280 | You can do it very quickly at allthehacks.com/vote. Finally,

01:11:58.320 | as I mentioned earlier, I'm going to record a special listener mailbag episode

01:12:02.040 | soon.

01:12:02.640 | So please share any questions for me or your favorite hacks by emailing

01:12:07.200 | chris@allthehacks.com or I'm @hutchins on Twitter.

01:12:11.080 | Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.

01:12:13.600 | [inaudible]

01:12:18.600 | I want to tell you about another podcast I love that goes deep on all things

01:12:36.560 | money.

01:12:37.200 | That means everything from money hacks to wealth building to early retirement.

01:12:41.000 | It's called the Personal Finance Podcast and it's much more about building

01:12:44.840 | generational wealth and spending your money on the things you value than it is

01:12:48.720 | about clipping coupons to save a dollar.

01:12:50.800 | It's hosted by my good friend Andrew who truly believes that everyone in this

01:12:55.080 | world can build wealth and his passion and excitement are what make this show so

01:12:59.400 | entertaining. I know because I was a guest on the show in December, 2022,

01:13:04.040 | but recently I listened to an episode where Andrew shared 16 money stats that

01:13:08.760 | will blow your mind and it was so crazy to learn things like 35% of millennials

01:13:13.560 | are not participating in their employer's retirement plan.

01:13:16.400 | And that's just one of the many fascinating stats he shared.

01:13:20.040 | The Personal Finance Podcast has something for everyone.

01:13:23.000 | It's filled with so many tips and tactics and hacks to help you get better with

01:13:26.760 | your money and grow your wealth. So I highly recommend you check it out.

01:13:30.400 | Just search for the Personal Finance Podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify,

01:13:34.600 | or wherever you listen to podcasts and enjoy.